Word.ws English Dictionary

chartreuse

UK/ʃɑːˈtɹɜːz//ʃɑɹˈtɹuːz/

chartreuse noun: a yellow or green liqueur made by Carthusian monks.

chartreuse: a yellow or green liqueur made by Carthusian monks
Image: Ospalh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chartreuse (countable and uncountable, plural chartreuses)

  1. A yellow or green liqueur made by Carthusian monks.
    • Old Tinker, in evening dress, sat uncomfortably, sideways, upon the edge of a wicker and brocade “chaise lounge,” finishing a tiny glass of chartreuse, while Talbot Potter, in the middle of the room, took leave of a second guest who had been dining with him.1921, Booth Tarkington, Harlequin and Columbine
    • Many liqueurs, among them chartreuse and benedictine, have long been held in great esteem as aphrodisiac aids.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 138
  2. A greenish-yellow color.
    • Well, we shot the line and we went for broke
      With a thousand screamin' trucks
      An' eleven long-haired Friends a' Jesus
      In a chartreuse microbus.1975, “Convoy”, in C.W. McCall, Chip Davis (lyrics), Black Bear Road, performed by C. W. McCall
    • Every scrap of vegetation had been scorched from the parched soil, except for growths of black, orange, and chartreuse lichen that, from the air, gave the earth a scabbed and infected appearance.2005, Christopher Paolini, “The Burning Plains”, in Eldest, page 582
  3. A kind of enamelled pottery.
  4. A French dish of vegetables (and sometimes meat) wrapped tightly in a decorative layer of salad or vegetable leaves and cooked in a dome-shaped mould.
    • ARRANGE DIFFERENT KINDS OF COOKED VEGETABLES IN A CASSEROLE […] The dish resembles a chartreuse.1977, Joseph Dommers Vehling Apicius, Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, page 238

Adjective

chartreuse (not comparable)

  1. Of a bright yellowish-green colour.

Proper noun capitalized: Chartreuse

Chartreuse

  1. A female given name from English.

Examples of chartreuse in a sentence

  • I've painted my room in five lovely shades of pink and chartreuse.
  • Why did you paint your room chartreuse? No shade; I'm genuinely curious.
  • I would never want my bathroom decorated in chartreuse and turquoise, but to each his own, I suppose.

All 11 example sentences with chartreuse

Forms of chartreuse

pluralchartreuses

Origin of chartreuse

Borrowed from French chartreuse. Doublet of charterhouse.

From chartreuse.

Words that rhyme with chartreuse

Questions about chartreuse

What does chartreuse mean?
Chartreuse means a yellow or green liqueur made by Carthusian monks.
What part of speech is chartreuse?
Chartreuse can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chartreuse?
Chartreuse is pronounced /ʃɑːˈtɹɜːz/ (UK).
What is the plural of chartreuse?
The plural of chartreuse is chartreuses.

Words near chartreuse in the dictionary

  1. Chartrand
  2. chartre
  3. chartres
  4. Chartres blue
  5. Chartres blues
  6. chartreuse
  7. chartreuses
  8. Chartreux
  9. chartroom
  10. chartrooms
  11. charts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chartreuse (page history and authors); Chartreuse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-chartreuse.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chartreuse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chartreuse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.